There cannot be any reader of this paper, who is not familiar with the long loan to Basingstoke of the Camrose.

Lord Camrose owned Hackwood House and in 1953 he leased land in Winchester Road to the town football club for 99 years at a peppercorn rent. He made this gift at a point when the local club were suddenly without a space to play. A covenant protected the land from any other use.

Hackwood Park has a long history. In 1223, Henry de Brayboeuf enclosed land for hunting known as hag-woode. The estate descended to the Paulet family who by the 16th Century owned a grand mansion in Old Basing on the site of a Norman motte and bailey castle. On October 8, 1645, Basing House fell to the Parliamentarians, Oliver Cromwell himself staying in Basingstoke to oversee the battle. Tiles from Basing House were used to repair St Michael's Church, damaged by Roundhead troops. A blue plaque (on the Tea Bar) marks the site where Cromwell stayed. In another London Street inn, just opposite, the Marquess was held overnight, before being taken to the Tower of London.

The family regained their estates and became Dukes of Bolton. In 1850, Hackwood House was leased to among others, Lord Curzon, who became Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905. He lived at Hackwood with his wife, Grace. Curzon's daughter by his first marriage had married Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. Local rumour says that Mosley visited the then owner of Down Grange House, also a Fascist sympathiser. Grace Curzon's memoirs record a visit in 1933 by Queen Mary and the Duchess of York, from where they visited the ruins of Basing House. Curzon died in 1925 and in 1935 the Boltons sold Hackwood House to Sir William Berry, who would become Lord Camrose, famously the owner of the Daily Telegraph. During WW2, Camrose moved to Audleys Wood (now a hotel), lending the house to the Canadian Army for use as a neurological hospital. He died in June 1954. In 1997, the estate was broken up and sold. A public right of way goes through Hackwood Park from the Tunworth Road to the Alton Road, part of an ancient church path from St Michael's in Basingstoke to St Mary the Virgin in Winslade.